Callie and Cayden

Playing wild lions in the tall grass

Landscaping Year 1

See notes for following photo regarding underlayment for this hardscaped bed.  This is one of two beds that are surrounded by red lava rock.  The light colored rock is jasper, which is beautiful.  The goal is for the xeriscaped plants to eventually take over the whole bed.  There are ornamental grasses, apache plume, desert fernbush, and gaillardia, all of which survived the deer and the summer heat.  And 3 feet of snow for the whole of winter 2015-2016.  The bush at the top, which is an ornamental buckeye something or other, did not survive the deer.

Landscaping Year 1

Our front "lawn" is quite large and steep, so in an effort to be more water wise, I wanted to hardscape the bottom section.  There will be no plants in the areas with red lava rock, and underneath those rocks is a layer of cardboard and then a layer of landscaping fabric.  The light colored stone bed has the same underlayment with holes cut out for xeriscape plants.  Our ornamental rocks also are a feature.  The woodchip bed is the original flower bed from past owners, and it had some day lilies already in place.  Other plants are ones I added.  By the end of the summer it became apparent that flowers in the pots won't work as the deer constantly pulled them out which caused the roots to dry out.  The older daylilies might as well be removed because the deer nibble the leaves and eat every flower bud right before they bloom.

Bullock's Oriole

In our front yard.  He hung around for weeks and drank nectar from the hummingbird feeder.

New Backsplash

Ken installed our new backsplash using agate tiles and faux copper tiling surround

Tall grass

In the summer our property was covered with tall grass.  Maybe hay that escaped from the field below?  Horses seem to love it.  Chase and Tucker are demonstrating how tall it is.

How come my kids never worked this hard?

My grandson Brandon hauling a beam up the hill for me.  And smiling while he does it!